You can’t open a newspaper or watch a news report these days, without hearing how bad the economy is. The media’s focus is pretty-much exclusively on huge, national and multinational companies, reporting drops in profits and job cuts.

However, whilst many huge corporations really struggle right now, there are countless small businesses out there, doing really well! Of course, their success is almost invisible, because it’s not carried in the newspapers or reported about on the news.

Marketing success in a recession

I spoke with a man yesterday morning, whose main problem at the moment, is recruiting enough good quality people to cope with the 300% increase in business he has seen since last June.

I spoke today with the owner of a recruitment business (one of the industries hit hardest by the recession), whose business is growing faster right now than ever before. I also spoke with an accountant earlier, who has seen an amazing 50% increase in the size of his client base in the past 6 months!

All three of these businesses are clients of mine, so their marketing is brilliant!However, their success is only possible, because they are focusing on growing their businesses rather than survival. Their competitors are ‘hunkering down’ and hoping to just stay afloat, so my clients have been able to gain market share and will continue to do so!

Even in a good economy, ignoring the development of a business and focusing on loss, will guarantee that a business fails!

That’s because what we focus on determines the actions we take. Let’s look at a very simple example, which shows how a business owner’s focus will dramatically influence what he does; based on whether he focuses on survival or growth.

If Bob asks himself; “How can I avoid going broke during the recession?” He might come up with answers like:

I could cut back on everything.

I could work harder / longer hours.

However, if Bob asks himself; “How can I double my profits, even during a recession?” He might come up with answers like:

I could find a great new service to offer all my existing clients, which is also highly profitable. Existing clients already trust me, so a high percentage will go for it.

I could get my website professionally copy written, so we get more sales leads from all those hits we get.

I could build an Introducer network, people who recommend me to their contacts in return for a commission. This way, unlike advertising, I only have to pay when a new client joins me AND I get an army of salespeople out there telling the world how great my business is.

I am certainly not suggesting that the current economy is a bunch of roses. It definitely isn’t!

What I am suggesting, is that we tend to get what we focus on; so why not focus on what you want – rather than what you fear?

One of my favourite sayings is; “start with the end in mind.” In other words, make sure you know what your outcome is, before you decide to take action.

I was thinking about this earlier, when I received an email from a reader, who had just realised that the time and money she had been investing in marketing her website and blog over the past 18 months, had been pretty much a total waste of time!

Yes, she had seen ‘traffic’ into them increase from zero to around two thousand unique visitors a day – but it hadn’t generated anything tangible for her or her business. In fact, it had actually hurt her business; because her time spent blogging, online networking and doing SEO had limited the amount of chargeable work she could do for her clients.

Marketing goals

This lady’s original marketing goal for her website and blog, was to showcase her skills as a business finance expert to a new audience and then convert some of these readers into paying clients. However, she became so focused on producing regularly updated content and getting her Search Engine Optimisation ‘just right’ that she was using these numbers to track her success – rather than the actual number of new clients and enquiries she was getting.

This is a common scenario, when someone gets so involved in the mechanics of a marketing activity, that the activity itself becomes their goal – rather than a tool to help them reach their goal.

Taking stock

If you have a commercial website or blog, how focused are you on the tangible or bankable results you get from it?

I am not talking about hits, metrics, comments or subscriber numbers – I’m talking about actual, business results, what your accountant would call your ROI (return on investment).

Here are some examples of questions we all need to ask ourselves, if we invest our time and/or money on a website or blog:

If your site/blog is there to generate enquiries for your business – how many is it generating each day and what quality are they?

If your site/blog is supposed to be generating advertising revenue, how much money is it making for you each week?

If your site/blog is supposed to be positioning you as an authority in your area of expertise, how many more calls are you getting from newspapers, trade publications and the media – wanting your opinions?

It does us all good from time to time, to take stock of where we are and to ensure that everything we are investing our time, money and energy in is actually taking us toward our business goals. Otherwise, we run the risk of rowing our boat REALLY hard in the wrong direction and suddenly wondering why we are in the wrong place after all that hard work.

In this post, I am going to show you how to get massively better results from your advertising – starting right now!

Making advertising work!

If you tried advertising in the past and found that the only winner was the person who sold it to you, you’re not alone. Over the years, I have helped market the services of thousands of businesses, spanning just about every industry and profession. During my initial conversations with the people behind these businesses, I would often hear a version of the following statement:

“We tried advertising – it doesn’t work!”

Advertising actually DOES work (really well), but only if you use it correctly. I have personally sold many millions of pounds (and dollars) worth of products and services for my clients and myself, with the help of advertising. In this post, I am going to share one of the secrets of my advertising success with you.

If you have a small or medium sized business and are advertising with the intention of making sales, boosting your profits and transforming your income; I suggest the only form of advertising worth investing in is action advertising.

Why is ACTION advertising so effective for smaller businesses?

ACTION advertising is designed to make the reader take action. Big companies are usually seeking to get someone to switch from one brand of cola, razor blade or sports shoes etc to another. These adverts can be effective by simply associating good feelings or famous / beautiful people with their ‘brand.’

Small businesses typically advertise in order to generate sales. Their advertising needs to; get their phone ringing, fill their store with eager buyers or fill their inbox with sales requests and enquiries. This means their adverts need to inspire some form of direct response or action from the reader / listener. A good quality action advertisement includes the following:

– It tells the reader who the advertiser is.
– It tells the reader what the benefits of their product or service is.
– It gives them a motivating reason to ACT NOW – to call, visit or e-mail the advertiser.
– It tells them to contact the advertiser – usually with a time sensitive or limited availability element!

Here’s an example of a simple action advertisement I read (with the company’s details changed):

“ACME Widgets can save you a recession-busting 45% on your annual widget costs, that’s why we are inviting you to attend our wine and widget evening on 26th February at 7pm. You can reserve your place now by calling Rachael on 012345 123123. As places are limited, please call now to avoid disappointment! Acme Widgets, 22 East Street, London.”

In contrast, most small business advertising creates little motivation for the reader to take action. These ads are often based around the following:
– They tell the reader the name of the service or business.
– They show the reader the advertiser’s logo.
– They tell the reader a little about what the advertiser does or their benefits.
– They sometimes list a ‘special offer’.
– They usually give the reader some contact details.

These ineffective adverts provide information about who the advertiser is and what they do, BUT give no reason for the reader to take action and contact them. Guess what – generally, no one does! Here’s a real life example, (with the company name/details changed):

“Acme Widgets have over 20 years of experience and our customer service is second to none. Last year our widgets were voted ‘Best Value Widget’ by What Widget Magazine. Our best selling Orange Widget is just £250. Acme Widgets, 22 East Street, London”.

The majority of small business advertising I see in the press or in trade journals, is far less effective than it could or should be. There is nothing compelling about what they say – nothing to inspire the reader to do anything. When I started out in marketing, back in the 1980’s, we used to call these ineffective advertisements ‘flick-through ads’ – because people would literally see them and just carry on flicking through whichever publication they were in, without doing anything.

Remember, all motivation comes from motive

If you want your advertisement to generate masses of new business, you can! But you need to advertise where your ideal future clients/customers are and give them a BIG enough reason to inspire them to take the action you require. People are not stupid and will only contact you if there’s a compelling / motivating enough reason for them to do so. Just having your message “out there” is simply not enough!

I wrote a post a while ago, where I asked why Seth Godin was not using Twitter, to ‘tweet’ with his many fans and why he banned comments on his blog. Seth was generous enough to come over to my blog and (ironically) leave a comment. Whatever you happen to think about Seth’s position in not allowing comments, one thing is certain – his strategy works well…. for him!

But, could the same strategy work for a non-celebrity too?

Seth Godin’s blog comment strategy

Seth’s decision not to allow people to comment on his blog posts, means his readers have only one alternative, if they want to discuss or debate what they have just read. They have to take that debate to; digg, FriendFeed, stumbleupon, facebook or twitter etc. Seth provides easy links below each post to encourage this and make it super-easy to spread his superb content.

The end result is that new people, who have never heard of Seth Godin or his excellent blog, (but who use one of those social bookmarking / social media services), will find him!

Although Seth has an alternative reason for banning comments on his blog, his strategy is perfect for a well known celebrity. It helps drive a massive amount of NEW people to his work and requires a fraction of his time; as he has no comments to filter or respond to.

Why Seth Godin’s comment strategy wouldn’t work for us

Because he’s famous, Seth avoids the one pitfall, which you or I would have if we banned comments on our blogs – Being slammed for failing to connect with our readers! Famous people who blog, don’t actually have readers – they have fans! Readers and fans are completely different.

Seth’s fans, for example, are used to paying in order to read his books, which is a one-way experience – just like his blog. He produces material – they read it – end of story. Equally, fans are far MORE likely to want to connect with Seth, by being seen to be forwarding his work on their social networks.

Could you or I use a version of Seth’s strategy on your blog?

I think that most bloggers can use a version of Seth’s approach; by occasionally closing comments on selected posts. This might be particularly effective if the post is either controversial or makes a significant announcement (or both!) The effectiveness of this strategy will depend on a few things, including; the number of readers your blog has, how many of them are actively using social bookmarking services and how easy you make it for people to share your posts.

However, for you or I to close the comments section for every post, as Seth has done, is NOT something I would recommend.

Here’s a quick blog marketing tip, to help you reach more targeted readers with your blog.

Focus on people – not ‘traffic’

Take a look at the search terms that people most frequently use, when they arrive on your blog from the search engines. Then, write a blog post about that subject and you will often attract even more people. More than this, you will not simply be ‘attracting traffic’ – you will be attracting targeted readers with an interest in your blog’s subject.

So long as the search terms that people are finding you with are 100% relevant to the subject of your blog, even if you see just a small increase in targeted readers, it’s worth it.

I have successfully used this tactic on my tech news blog and seen some amazing results!

I would like to hear from YOU if you have already used this idea and what YOUR experience was!

Here’s a quick marketing tip, which has helped thousands of people to massively improve their sales results.

One of the most common marketing problems businesses have, is reaching the right people at the right time. You need to get YOUR message in front of people, at the exact point where they are extremely interested in buying your kind of product or service. So, how does it work?

Marketing, word of mouth and a recommendation too!

This quick marketing tip is all about identifying the people, which your prospective clients contact before they are about to purchase your kind of product or service – and getting these people to recommend you. This means you not only get a supply of sales leads from extremely hot prospective clients, you also get to benefit from the power of a referral too!

Example: Although this process works for business to business providers and in many different industries, for this example, let us assume that your business supplies and fits wall and floor tiles. You would start off by asking yourself; “what do people do just BEFORE they get their bathroom or kitchen re-tiled?” Well, in some cases, the person will have just experienced a flood etc and called in a plumber. Equally, they may have got a plumber in to fit a new bathroom suite and now require the floor and walls re-tiled.

So, you would contact the plumbers, who work in the areas and the kind of homes you want to work with, and offer them a standard referral fee for every piece of work their referrals generate for you. Obviously, you would show them some examples of how brilliant the quality of your work is, so they knew they were recommending a high quality service.

By being selective about who you get to recommend you, you will also be able to attract work from the ideal profile of client or customer for your business too! This is a great way to attract excellent quality, highly targeted leads – Without wasting a penny on ineffective advertising. You only pay when a lead becomes a piece of business, making it one of the most profitable forms of marketing out there.